"A child's learning is the function more of the characteristics of his classmates than those of the teacher." James Coleman, 1972

Sunday, December 25, 2011

Separate and Unequal in Body and Mind

by Judy Rabin
While
the scrooges in the halls of Congress, the multi-billion dollar testing
industry and the greedy, fascist proponents of more tests to measure
and punish poor students and those who teach them sit down to their
Christmas dinner, here's yet another story that is finally changing the
conversation about education from "no excuses" to "it's the poverty,
stupid."

A
country that is now obviously divided along the lines of haves and have
nots, when it comes to health, education, housing, jobs, security of
any kind, is also a country of haves and have nots when it comes to
physical fitness and overall health.

Here's another story from the Bay area where like most other places across the US, provides plenty of opportunities for the ones who live in the right neighborhoods.

December 24, 2011

The Haves’ Children Are Healthier Than the Have-Nots’

By KATHARINE MIESZKOWSKI

Every
Monday, Sycamore Valley Elementary in Danville challenges its students
to run a “Smile Mile” together after school. Some parents even run with
their children. Photos of the student joggers’ grinning faces are posted
in the cafeteria. On a recent Monday afternoon, there were 41 smiling
faces on the wall.

Students
at Sycamore Valley have a lot to be happy about when it comes to their
physical fitness. Fifth graders there got the best scores among all of
their Bay Area peers on the 2011 statewide Physical Fitness Test.

Eighty-three percent of the fifth graders tested at Sycamore Valley acedthe
test by receiving healthy scores on all six different measurements — of
aerobic capacity, abdominal strength, upper body strength, trunk
strength, body composition and flexibility, most of them gauged through physical activity.
One part of the Physical Fitness Test measures a child’s body
composition, usually through body mass index, which is calculated using
weight and height and is used to determine who is overweight.

Statewide, only 31 percent of public school students performed as well, according to the California Department of Education.

An
analysis of state data by The Bay Citizen revealed a large variation in
how fifth graders in Bay Area elementary schools perform on the test.
The schools that performed the best have few students from low-income
families, for reasons that experts say are not surprising. At Sycamore
Valley Elementary, in an affluent suburban community, not a single
student was eligible to receive a free or reduced-price lunch because of
low family income last year, according to the state’s data.

Across
the Bay, in San Francisco’s Mission district, none of the fifth graders
at Cesar Chavez Elementary School received six healthy scores on the
test. More than a quarter of them were found to “need improvement” on
every measure of fitness.

At
Cesar Chavez, where Spanish is the first language for many, more than
85 percent of the students are eligible to receive free or reduced-price
school lunches. In the school district that includes Cesar Chavez,
Hispanic and black students are less likely to receive healthy scores
than their Asian and white peers, the state data show.

Students
at Sycamore Elementary have a dedicated “physical education specialist”
on campus to help them train for the test. Those at Cesar Chavez do
not.

Robert
O’Brien, Sycamore Valley’s physical education specialist, who favors
shorts even when the temperature dips into the 40s, is fond of slogans
like “exercise, not extra fries.” He leads students as young as 6 in
sit-ups, jumping jacks, push-ups and running, striving to get all of
them moving, while giving their classroom teachers time to prepare other
lessons.

All
21 of the elementary schools in the San Ramon Valley Unified School
District, in which Sycamore Valley is located, have a physical education
specialist like Mr. O’Brien.

“Having
dedicated physical education teachers can make a big difference in
students’ performance on the test,” said Linda Hooper, an education,
research and evaluation consultant for the California Department of
Education.

The
San Francisco Unified School District has just 15 physical education
specialists for all 76 of its elementary schools. Spread thin, they work
with about half the schools at any time. According to Michelle Zapata,
the physical education program administrator for the district, Cesar
Chavez was among the 38 schools that had no physical education
specialist on campus.

Advocates for child health warn that failing to teach children how to be active and healthy will have long-term consequences.

“It
comes as no surprise whatsoever that such enormous inequities would be
present,” said Dr. Harold Goldstein, executive director of the
California Center for Public Health Advocacy, a nonprofit organization.
“It is grossly unjust and will have health and economic impacts on the
state of California for generations to come.”

Sycamore
Valley Elementary maintains a focus on health outside of physical
education class time. Parents are not allowed to bring in cupcakes or
other potentially fattening treats to celebrate birthdays. Instead,
gifts of pencils or erasers to classmates are substituted.

Parents
also contribute financially. Fund-raising pays for a twice-a-week
movement class for kindergarteners that is not required by the state. In
the fall, the school’s Parent Teacher Association gave Mr. O’Brien a
$375 grant to buy new basketball hoops, and he also leads an
after-school sports camp that helps raise money to buy sports equipment.

Each
fall, the PTA holds a “fun run” fund-raiser, in which students are
sponsored to run laps during school. It raised nearly $10,000 this year.

Even
the school’s location supports fitness. It is next to a park, near a
sweeping open space of rolling hills dotted with oaks. The park features
a play structure, a basketball court, a bocce court and athletic
fields, where Mr. O’Brien sometimes holds physical education lessons.

Many elementary school students in the suburbs also play sports outside school, including basketball and lacrosse.

Rebecca
Adams, president of the Sycamore Valley Elementary PTA, said her
children, who are in the first and third grades, participate in indoor
soccer, swimming, gymnastics, baseball and softball, depending on the
season.

Not
all their activities are organized by adults. “A lot of kids play
outside in their front yard,” said Ms. Adams, who lives less than a mile
from the school. In-line skating, biking and tag are popular.

“My kids play outside all the time,” she said.

At
Cesar Chavez Elementary School, physical education lessons, taught by
classroom teachers, are held on a fenced-in blacktop lot below a huge,
colorful mural of the school’s namesake. In the mural, Mr. Chavez, the
late civil rights leader, is surrounded by a crowd of children as he
carries a banner that reads “Help me take responsibility for my own life
so I can be free at last.”

On
the urban school’s blacktop, the basketball rims have no nets. “We
don’t have a field or a park next door,” said Catalina Rico, the
school’s principal.

Most
of the students’ parents, many of whom are immigrants, cannot give
extra money to help beef up its programs. Some families are homeless,
and many others are struggling financially.

“A lot of our kids have been traumatized by poverty, violence, their parents being deported,” Ms. Rico said.

For those families, regular exercise in a safe place after school may be out of reach.

If parents are working two jobs, Ms. Rico said, “who is going to take them to the park?”